Rep. Cuellar describes uncertainty in Mexico around NAFTA

Mexico's President-elect Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador waves during a meeting with businessmen of the state of Nuevo Leon, in Monterrey, on September 4, 2018.

Mexico's President-elect Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador waves during a meeting with businessmen of the state of Nuevo Leon, in Monterrey, on September 4, 2018.

Photo: JULIO CESAR AGUILAR /AFP /Getty Images

Photo: JULIO CESAR AGUILAR /AFP /Getty Images

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Mexico's President-elect Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador waves during a meeting with businessmen of the state of Nuevo Leon, in Monterrey, on September 4, 2018.

Mexico's President-elect Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador waves during a meeting with businessmen of the state of Nuevo Leon, in Monterrey, on September 4, 2018.

Photo: JULIO CESAR AGUILAR /AFP /Getty Images

Rep. Cuellar describes uncertainty in Mexico around NAFTA

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WASHINGTON — After returning from a trip to Mexico City to discuss the overhaul of the North American Free Trade Agreement, South Texas Congressman Henry Cuellar said he could not get assurances from the new ruling party there, led by leftist president-elect Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, that its leaders would sign on to a new trade deal.

Still, Cuellar, a Democrat from Laredo, said he was reassured after meetings with both Alfonso Romo, chief of staff to Obrador, and Ricardo Monreal, the coordinator for the Morena party in the Mexican Senate.

“They didn’t say, we are going to (agree to the NAFTA deal) but they did talk about jobs,” Cuellar said in an interview Wednesday. “One of the things they want to do is create jobs, and I think they understand trade is the way to create jobs.”

Last week President Donald Trump and Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto announced they had come to terms on a new NAFTA, setting the stage for those two countries and Canada to sign a final deal before Pena Nieto leaves office Dec. 1.

But Mexico’s recently elected congressional representatives took their seats Saturday, with Obrador’s Morena Party in majority. And there are questions whether they will go along with the deal Pena Nieto cut with Trump.

“There is a strong nationalist element there, and they might not see this as favorable to Mexico,” Tony Payan, director of Rice University’s Mexico Center at the Baker Institute, said last week.

Mexico is Texas’s largest trading partner, making business leaders in both countries increasingly nervous as the relationship between the two countries has become volatile in recent years.

During his trip, Cuellar also met with the Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim, who was once the richest man in the world and exchanged tough words with Obrador during the presidential campaign.

Two members of Obrador’s staff were present at the meeting with Slim, Cuellar said, adding the appointment of Romo, a wealthy Monterrey businessman, as chief of staff had reassured many in the Mexico’s business world.

“They’re trying to send out a message,” Cuellar said. “(Obrador) sat down with a lot of the business leaders near the election to calm them down.”